A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes Read online

  The day at Scotland Yard had brought the typical mix of petty crimes. Three burglaries, an assault, and a confidence scam from the usual thugs and grifters. It made one appreciate the exotic life of a consulting detective.

  Lestrade had organized his men, rounded up and questioned witnesses, then suspects, and made headway in three of the five cases.

  At the end of the day, wearied by the worst of humanity, he’d slogged home through the rainy and foggy London streets.

  Later, as Lestrade had warmed himself by the fire, Constable Briers slipped in the door and methodically removed his greatcoat, then his jacket and waistcoat, hanging them on the brass coat stand. Then he’d mounted the stairs to Lestrade’s bedroom.

  Lestrade, giving one last poke to the dwindling fire, had sighed, and followed Briers up the stairs, leaving a trail of clothes behind him. The night passed with the heat of skin upon skin, in warm breath and whispered moans until they both collapsed into something resembling sleep.

  Now Lestrade inhaled deeply, feeling the smoke scour his lungs. He exhaled a long ribbon of it. “You should leave soon,” he said. “Don’t want anyone noticing.”

  Constable Briers lifted his head, trailed a hand through Lestrade’s chest hair. “Already?” he said.

  “I’m afraid so,” Lestrade said, softer.

  “Yes, sir,” Briers said.

  Lestrade patted the younger man’s muscular flanks and thought of the Detective.

  Lestrade had barely arrived at Scotland Yard and was loosening his cravat when Inspector Gerard greeted him. “You’ll want to get your coat back on,” he said. “Murder.”

  Lestrade sighed.

  “How do you think I feel?” Gerard said. “My flat’s not far from the scene. I’ve only just come from there.”

  Together they climbed into the brougham. Lestrade’s pairing with Gerard had been a recent event, handed down from Sir Felix with the hope that with two men on task they would be more than a match for the Detective. Gerard was a nice enough chap, but Lestrade still bristled at the encumbrance.

  The body lay face down in a back alley, covered with a dark blanket. Fog curled in from the street, like fingers reaching for the dead. “Was he found like this?” Lestrade asked the constable on the scene.

  “No, sir,” the constable said. “He weren’t wearing no clothes. Just the gunshots. We had to cover him.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Can’t tell, sir,” the constable said. “No identifying belongings.”

  Lestrade bent by the body, noting the dishevelled hair, the blood-splattered neck. He lifted the man’s head.

  And dropped it again.

  Constable Briers.

  Lestrade scrambled away from the body, eyes wide, pulse hammering. “Everything all right?” Gerard said.

  “Yes, yes,” Lestrade said, recovering himself. “I…I recognize this man.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s Constable Briers. He’s one of us.”

  The constable frowned. “It’s bad business, then, sir. Will we be wanting Holmes on this one?”

  “No,” Lestrade and Gerard said at the same time.

  “We’ll take it from here,” Gerard said.

  Lestrade, staring at the body, imagined the freckled skin beneath the blanket. He knew almost every plane and curve of that body, he’d made good use of it in the previous weeks. Now Briers was dead. Who had done it? And why?

  “We’ll have to look into his recent whereabouts,” Gerard said. “Find out if there’s a woman, where he lived, where he liked to spend his time.”

  “I can do that,” Lestrade said. “You go back to the Yard. Get things under way there.”

  “If you like,” Gerard said.

  He left without another glance at the body, embraced by the welcoming fog.

  On the brougham ride to Briers’s flat, Lestrade couldn’t help thinking that if Holmes was on the case, he’d have likely solved it already – using the angle of Briers’s body, the dirt on the soles of his feet and the tobacco stains on his fingers. He would have also discovered Lestrade’s involvement with Briers, and that was something Lestrade was certain he couldn’t bear. Only one other truth could be so damaging to him.

  Sweet, sad Briers. How was it that he’d come to such an end? There had only been a few hours possible during which he could have been killed. Was it just chance – an encounter on the way from Lestrade’s home? Or something more sinister.

  Lestrade needed to find the answer soon. The more attention it drew, the death of a police officer after all, threatened his privacy, and were his predilections to come to light, he would lose everything that he’d worked for.

  He’d been invited to Briers’s flat many times, and yet had never visited. He’d always relied on the man coming to him. Briers had been a warm body for Lestrade’s bed, not much more, and while they’d shared the ultimate intimacy, Lestrade knew very little about him.

  The landlady, a Mrs Cosgrove, swelled with tears when he told her of Briers’s death and let him up into the rooms.

  “He was such a nice man,” she said. “Helped me when my son, Thomas, had gone missing. Always paid his rent on time. A gentleman.”

  “Yes,” Lestrade said. “Did you know of anyone who might have a quarrel with him? Anyone who had it in for him?”

  “No, and I can’t imagine it, neither,” she said. She covered her mouth conspiratorially. “I do think there was a woman, though.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was often leaving at odd times of night, or not coming home at all. Or coming home at the crack of dawn. He was a handsome fellow, I’m sure he had a woman somewhere. I often thought she might be married.”

  “Um, yes,” Lestrade said. “Thank you. Do you think you could leave me alone to examine the rooms?”

  “Of course,” she said, sniffing. “Catch whoever did this.”

  “I intend to,” Lestrade said.

  After she left, he moved about the drawing room and then into the bedroom. Briers did not have a lot of possessions. His bookcases were sparsely filled, there were very few ornaments on the walls, just uniforms and suits, hats and cravats, in the wardrobe. Again, he thought that the Detective would have been able to deduce volumes about the man just by looking at his living space. Lestrade, however, could only perhaps assemble a sentence.

  There wasn’t even a diary or anything to indicate what had been going on in Briers’s life outside of his time spent in Lestrade’s bed.

  He returned to Mrs Cosgrove. “Did Briers have any close friends? Someone he liked to drink with, or perhaps a friend from a club?”

  Mrs Cosgrove pursed her lips. “Most of his friends were from Scotland Yard. But there was someone he used to have supper with. Henry Samuels, I think his name was.”

  “Thank you,” Lestrade said. “Don’t worry, I’ll find who did this.”

  Mrs Cosgrove’s smile proved that she, at least, had faith.

  Lestrade returned to Scotland Yard where word had spread of Briers’s death. He went straight to his desk then stopped suddenly, his pulse quick. Dr John Watson, broad-chested and straight-backed, stood in front of it. “Are you here with Holmes?” Lestrade blurted out.

  “Inspector,” Watson said. “No, I am here alone.”

  Lestrade relaxed, his breath coming in a more measured fashion. “What can I do for you, Doctor?” he said.

  “I am here concerning Constable Briers,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  “He was a patient of mine.”

  Lestrade sat on the edge of the desk. “Really? Why? How?”

  Watson shrugged. “We met during one of our cases. He knew I was a doctor and starting my own practice, so I think he felt comfortable coming to me with his ailment.”

  And I’m sure he found you as irresistible as the ladies often do, Lestrade thought to himself. “Ailment?”

  “Congenital heart condition. He was worried that it might affect his performance on the job. I was monitoring it
for him.”

  “I see. Well, I don’t see how that comes into things. He was murdered. Shot several times.”

  “There’s something else,” Watson said. “Though there was little I could do for the fellow, he’d mentioned on several occasions that he’d heard of several remedies for his condition – tonics and whatnot. I told him that I couldn’t prescribe or even condone their use without proper evidence of their properties, but I fear I couldn’t persuade him. I mention this because such a pursuit may have something to do with this. Such concoctions are notoriously unreliable. One may have made him prone to violence. Or perhaps he became cross with the purveyor of such wares? I thought perhaps it might bear looking into.”

  “Thank you, Dr Watson,” Lestrade said, flashing a thin smile. “I’ll make enquiries.”

  Watson stood up and donned his bowler hat. “One last thing. Do you think that you could use Holmes’s help in this case?”

  “No,” Lestrade said. Then, softer, “No, thank you, but Briers was a police officer and I think it would be best if we handled this.”

  “Quite right,” Watson said. “Quite right. I only mentioned it because Holmes is in one of his moods, locked up tight in Baker Street, swimming in cocaine. I do hate to see him so. Never mind. Good luck in your investigation. Good day.”

  Lestrade watched the doctor go and thought of the Detective, alone in his rooms on Baker Street, slumped upon the divan, in a cocaine haze. Lestrade despised the man’s addiction, yet understood it keenly. That mind, when not brought to bear on a case, could only seek sanctuary in the drug’s embrace. Lestrade knew that he could rescue the Detective from that, sing the siren’s call that would bring the Detective to him.

  But he could not. He did not want that intense gaze, that gaze that did things to him, brought to bear on the current case. He could not.

  Lestrade spent the morning questioning tonic and elixir salesmen, finding nothing to connect them to Constable Briers. On his return to Scotland Yard, Lestrade trailed behind a group of officers pushing someone inside the station. The restrained man in the centre was huddled over, shuddering with crying sobs. Lestrade caught the broad form of Gerard who was moving with them. “What’s happening?” he said.

  “We brought in Henry Samuels. We kept an eye on him as you suggested and he was in the pub, drunk, talking about our friend, Briers. Thought it would be prudent to bring him in.”

  “You taking him to the interview room?” Lestrade said.

  Gerard nodded.

  “Leave me alone with him,” Lestrade said.

  “If you like,” Gerard said.

  Lestrade waited until Samuels had been secured in the interview room, then entered and closed the door.

  Samuels’s wet, red face sat atop a smartly dressed form. It was an incongruous joining. Something about the blubbering man made Lestrade want to hit him. His weakness. His abject emotion.

  Lestrade took the seat opposite him. “How did you know Victor Briers?” Lestrade said.

  “We were good friends.” Samuels sniffed. Lestrade recognized something in the man’s posture, his tremulous voice.

  “I think it was more than that,” Lestrade said, letting the sneer into his voice. “I think you were lovers.”

  Samuels turned his face away. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “But I’m not,” Lestrade said. “Look at you – a blubbering mess. Crying like a young girl. You loved him. What happened? Did he cut you loose? You weren’t man enough for him?”

  Samuels glared at him through red eyes. “You shut your mouth.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it? You were too much the sap and he went and found someone harder, someone who could keep himself under control, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” Samuels said, a growl of anger in his voice. “He found someone else.”

  “Is that why you killed him?” Lestrade said.

  Samuels’s eyes widened, he opened his wet mouth. “Killed him? No. I didn’t…I could never have killed him.”

  “People can do all manner of things when hurt. Wounded. They lash out at the source of that pain. Is that what you did, Samuels? Tell me and we can take care of it.”

  “No! I didn’t. I just…I just wanted to find out who it was that he was with. I wanted to expose him. To expose them both.”

  Lestrade’s fire abruptly went out. He felt cold sweat on his brow. “And did you? Find out, I mean.”

  “No. I only knew that he was another police officer.”

  “You will keep that to yourself,” Lestrade said. “I will not have you causing disruption by pointing your finger at my fellow officers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you keep your mouth shut, I will do the same. No one needs to know of your involvement with Briers assuming your story checks out.”

  Samuels stared at Lestrade, then pulled himself together, sitting straighter, smoothing back his hair. He nodded. “I can do that.”

  “Good,” Lestrade said. Then he left the room.

  Samuels’s alibi, that he was out drinking late into the evening, was corroborated by the keeper of the Hearth Tavern and several of its patrons. Samuels had drunk himself into a stupor and passed out. They’d sent for his sister to take him home and the journey and escort were witnessed by several others.

  That still left no suspects for Briers’s murder, and already a day had passed. It would have already been brought to Sir Childing’s attention. The investigation would become more probing and soon Lestrade’s involvement with Briers would be uncovered if he didn’t present the culprit. The lure of bringing in the Detective hovered tantalizingly before him.

  He pushed it away.

  He stopped by Inspector Gerard’s desk on his way outside. “What’s the matter, Lestrade?” Gerard said. “You look worn out.”

  “Just the Briers case,” Lestrade said.

  Gerard frowned. “I thought we had Samuels to rights for it.”

  “We did, but it turns out he has an alibi. And I don’t know that he’s capable of it. He’s a wreck of a man. Broken. Too emotional.”

  “Many a crime has been committed because of overflowing emotions,” Gerard said. “Not everyone has the detachment of a Scotland Yard detective.”

  Lestrade smiled. “That’s true. But he has an alibi. I’ll let him go shortly.”

  Gerard shrugged. “So it’s back to the start, then?”

  Lestrade sighed and nodded. “I suppose so. I’d better get back to it.” He gave Gerard a nod and then went to issue Samuels’s release.

  Lestrade worked late, poring over the records of the case by lamplight, examining the reports from the scene, the notes from interviewing the locals. Thinking of the Detective, he called on his powers of observation, looking for the tiniest detail, and yet nothing stood out.

  Muffled sobs caused him to raise his head, his first break from the documents in hours. Over at the front desk, a man and a woman stood, middle-aged, bent with grief. As Lestrade watched, the desk clerk slid across a paper to the man and, with a shaking hand, he signed, keeping one arm wrapped around the shuddering woman.

  Lestrade called over to the next desk. “Oi. Who is that?”

  “Briers’s parents.”

  Lestrade stared at them, at the parents of the man who had so often visited his bed, at their raw pain. He realized with sudden bitterness that he hadn’t even been thinking of Briers as a person anymore, just a stain on his reputation, a plaything that he had dallied with while thinking of another. A riddle to solve. He stood up and reached for his hat.

  He didn’t look at the either of them as he walked out the door.

  Lestrade pulled out the magnifying glass at the scene of the crime. He’d seen Holmes use one before, when examining dirt or soot or the watermarks on paper. He wasn’t sure that he would find anything at the site, especially in the fading light, but he had to try. Time was running out.

  He bent over with the glass to his eye, scanning the cobblestones, the junction of wall and stre
et. Most of the blood had washed away in the persistent London rain. What hope did any other evidence have? It wasn’t as if Briers had any clothes to examine, either.

  Lestrade thought of that. Where had his clothes gone? It wasn’t as if the man would have been wandering around nude in the early morning hours. He’d had them, anyway, while leaving Lestrade’s home. What the devil could have brought him to this? Was it some kind of purveyor of remedies as Watson had suggested? They’d questioned most of the high profile vendors in the area and come up with nothing.

  Lestrade hurled the glass in frustration and it skidded against the ground, skipping across the stones before crashing into the wall. Shaking his head, he went to pick it up. Of course a large crack split it, the two pieces chasing each other in the metal frame. He tucked it into his pocket.

  He recalled that Gerard lived nearby and walked to the man’s house. He was certain to have something to drink – some brandy or whisky, perhaps. A pipe, too. Maybe if he relaxed, Lestrade thought, he could come to some new insight.